The Community ft. Relic present: The 2v2 Masters Cup

We're excited to present a major tournament for the summer season, the 2v2 Masters Cup! There's some juicy prize money on the line, and what's more, the top teams in the game will be battling out on the new patch, making things all the more interesting for viewers!

This tournament is a collaborative effort, being jointly organized and run between community members Currahee, A_E, and Sturmpanther, in conjunction with Relic.

Tournament Overview

The tournament will take place over three weekends in July and August, with the top three teams getting a piece of a US $3,300 prize pool!

Twenty-Four total teams will be selected to take part.

Eight teams will be seeded based on past tournament performance, automatch ranks, and general renown. These teams will skip the qualification round.

A further sixteen teams will be selected for the qualification round, based largely on automatch ranks and past tournament performance. These sixteen teams will play an eliminator round and the eight qualifying teams will progress to the Round of 16 to face off against the seeded teams. From the round of sixteen, the tournament will be run as a traditional knock-out bracket.

Coverage of the tournament will be comprehensive on Twitch. A full Twitch schedule will be updated here at a later time.

Key Dates

24 June 2019: Registration Opens

3rd July 2019: Registration Closes

Sunday 21 July 2019: Qualifying Round (BEST OF THREE)

Sunday 28th July 2019: Round of Sixteen and Quarter Finals (BEST OF THREE)

Sign up eligibility

Both team members must have completed at least one automatch game, for both axis and allies in 2v2 or 1v1 (2v2 preferred) in the sign-up window.

Both team members must have at least one visible faction within the top 200 in 2v2 or 1v1.

Players must have at least 300 total hours in CoH2 on their Steam account.

All players must play only on their primary COH2 Steam account. Players must also register for the tournament under this name.

Team nicknames are not allowed. All team names must be entered as “Player name 1 – Player name 2”

By signing up to play in 2v2 Masters Cup you agree that you:

Have read and understood all of the following rules. (People without strong English skills please request translation, someone within the community will assist).

Will play to the conditions specified by the rules at all times, and play competitively and to the best of your abilities.

Will check in for tournaments on time and that not doing so forfeits your place in that tournament.

Will play on your primary CoH2 account under the Steam name you are most known as.

Will be available to play on each Tournament days, and ensure to make yourself available for the Two Stages of the Tournament.

General Match Rules

Fixed starting positions: Allies in position 1 and 2, Axis in position 3 and 4

This is a mixed factions tournament for both Axis and Allies. For instance each Axis team must play OKW + Ostheer, and on the allied side any two of the three factions in necessary,

No mirror matches.

All bulletins and commanders allowed.

Game Options

"Map Options"

Tuning Pack: No Mod.

Starting Resources: Standard Resources.

Starting Locations: Fixed Locations.

Win Condition: Victory Point. Victory Points: 500 points.

Coldtech: Disabled

It is both teams’ responsibility to ensure that the settings are correct. If they are incorrect the game is at risk of being declared invalid by referees.

Observer Settings

Observer mode: on.

Observer delay: 5 minutes.

Bypass Delay Password: off

To check that the game has been set up correctly the summary should appear as so:

Map Rankings

The following rankings have been decided after polling the opinions of several top 2v2 players. The highest ranking unplayed map will be automatically selected as the deciding map in a series.

Elst Outskirts

Rails and Metal

Crossing in the Woods

Vaux Farmlands

Alliance of Defiance

Faction/Map Pick - General Rules

There is a coin toss at the start of a series.

The winner can either veto the second and fourth map (greater control over map selection), or pick their faction. If the winner of the coin toss chooses to pick the faction, the loser receives the second and fourth veto instead, and vice versa.

If there is an ace game, the team with the best victory point tally will have the pick of the faction. Losses will count as 0 VPs for this purpose. The map for this deciding game will be the highest ranked map, that has not been played in this series so far.

The team that picked Axis/ Allies must also declare factions first in the first game. This team must again declare their factions first in the second game.

Referees and Penalisatzion

The referees are there to help, their main focus is ensuring the tournament is on time, and players understand the rules.

If the referees feel player have broken rules or are purposely wasting time there are a few tools at their disposal. These are all a last resort, and the focus is on having fun, nobody wants to enforce rules.

Forms of penalization and how many Officials needed to agree:

Formal warning: Officials required to agree = 2

100 VP penalty in next game = 2

Automatic one game loss for offending team = 3

Disqualification from the tournament = 3

SEGA / Relic staff can also make these decisions after careful consultation with organizers and referees.

Screen sharing and Fairplay overseers

Relic’s current cheat detection is comprehensive, but flags cheaters for review and manual actioning.

In a tournament of such magnitude, we want to make sure that any attempt to cheat is identified and punished instantaneously.

Official referees may ask to observe a player’s screen at any stage during the competition.

Players will be required to share their screens with an overseer through Discord. This process is not demanding on system performance, and will not affect gameplay. A screen sharing request is mandatory. A player who refuses to do so will not be allowed to compete.

Disallowed Units or Combinations

The IR Half Track for OKW is currently bugged, providing unintended sight benefits for the user. This is not an easy issue to resolve. Therefore we are mandating this unit cannot be used in any stage of the tournament.

Using this unit in a match will result in a loss in most circumstances, at the referee's discretion.

Arguable bugs and exploits Ruling

All players taking part in any stage of The Masters Cup must be familiar with the following rules regarding certain scenarios or exploits.

"Ghosting" with sandbags, wire, tank traps, or any other object is NOT allowed.

USF population cap passing via decrewing is allowed.

Using barbed wire in 'creative' ways to manipulate units is allowed.

Blocking units into garrisons is allowed.

Faust misfire manipulation is allowed. (Driving a vehicle purposely close to the firing model to cause a misfire)

Disallowed major bugs or exploits

Bug and Exploits that increase stats and attributes of units are expressly disallowed, including speed, veterancy etc. There are no known cases of this at the moment, but in the past they have been possible.

Exploiting the lobby UI to obtain Bulletins or Commanders belonging to another faction will result in instant disqualification from the tournament, and a permanent in-game ban

We reserve the right to ban bugs and exploits as the tournament progresses, and take action against any player that used an unknown bug or exploit to gain a competitive advantage.

Attempted cheating

Any detected hack or cheat will result in instant disqualification from the tournament. Furthermore, the account in question, and any account associated with it, either currently, or in the future, will be banned permanently from the game.

Technical issues/crashes

Please restart CoH2 before any tournament game activity, and close external programs before playing, to avoid crashes.

Crash Procedure:

Player with bugsplat/ crash/ lost connection - Must screenshot the bugsplat, crash or lost connection message.

Player with bugsplat/ crash/ lost connection - Inform opponent and referee of the situation. The referee will make note of the situation.

Referee Arbitration:

Once video is authenticated the referees will specify to replay the game in the majority of occasions.

Unless the game is judged to have been clearly over satisfying one of three 'win' conditions:

50 population cap army advantage and judged strategic dominance within a minute either side of when the crash occurred (tanks and veteran units with no counter).

A victory point situation where it is literally impossible to capture and beat the clock, regardless of player actions.

A victory point advantage of 300 + for one team, where said team looks to be firmly in control of the match.

If any win condition is satisfied, the win will more than likely awarded to that team.

However, as with other facets of the tournament, Relic and official referees reserve the right to make a different ruling. Bug splat scenarios can differ greatly, and tournament officials will discuss and consider any occurence individually.

Invincible ZIS Gun Bug procedure

This bug is far less frequent than in the past after a bugfix. However, the following rule still stands.

Background: Unfortunately, there has been a long-standing bug in the game regarding zis guns. It is very rare but it creates an invincible ghost AT gun which can attain veterancy. It is almost always facing the enemy and almost always becomes a problem.

Due to it being linked to animations and their randomness, it's extremely difficult to willingly replicate for assessment. This rule is the procedure to follow should one occur.

Axis Players Decide to "Replay" or "Continue"

If an invincible zis gun bug occurs the Axis team can order a replay or say to continue the game.

Once they have encountered the invincible zis gun they can either say: "replay" or "continue" in game chat to carry on playing.

If they continue playing for a minute after clearly having seen the ghost zis gun fire, the game is assumed to continue, and a replay cannot be forced.

Once a call for a replay has occurred stop playing and save the replay file as usual.

The Axis team cannot change their mind once they have said to continue.

Soviet/ Allied Team Replay Appeal

If the Soviet player / Allied Team has complete dominance and their opponent has called for a replay they can appeal and be given the win by referees. At the point when the zis gun bug occurs they must have had:

50 population cap army advantage and judged strategic dominance. (tanks and veteran units with no counter)

Or a victory point situation where it is literally impossible for their opponent to capture and beat the clock, regardless of player actions.

A victory point advantage of 300 + for the Allied team, where said team looks to be firmly in control of the match.